Salford Red Devils head coach Paul Rowley has revealed that Emmanuel Waine had a bleed on the brain following his collision with Franck Maria last week.
Waine needed to be stretchered off last Thursday when Salford took on Catalans Dragons at the Salford Community Stadium after being left unconscious by the force of the head contact made by Maria. The Catalans prop was shown a red card at the time and he has since been suspended for five matches.
The Salford man, who was on loan from Bradford Bulls, was knocked out for around two minutes and needed to go to hospital for further treatment and assessment, where it was confirmed that he had broken his jaw.
Salford announced that Waine had been allowed to return home on Sunday, three days after the incident, and speaking in his pre-match press conference this morning Rowley confirmed that he had also suffered a bleed on the brain.
As such, there was real concern for the Papua New Guinea international at the time, but Rowley was happy to say he is on the mend and in the hands of Bradford’s medical team.
Salford Red Devils boss on Emmanuel Waine
“He’s alright now but he wasn’t good for quite a while,” Rowley said on Waine. “He has a broken jaw and he won’t return to play until he’s been cleared further down the track.
“He had a bleed on the brain and a broken jaw so he wasn’t in a good way if I’m being honest.
“Thankfully now he’s recovering well and he’ll just have to take his time and take it easy for quite a bit now.”
Pushed on the concern around Waine, Rowley added: “Two minutes is quite a while to be snoring and fast asleep from a head collision, that’s a serious head trauma. There was a lot of concern actually within our medical staff at the time.
“When he woke up he was very disorientated, as you would expect, and he wanted to get off the stretcher. He took a bit of managing, for a strong bloke if he doesn’t want to lie there prone then it takes a little bit of man handling from our medical staff, who are absolutely world class.
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“That gives you confidence knowing our staff, and the staff of every other club as well, but they were absolutely brilliant and they looked after him really well.
“He’s not a familiar face around here and being from Bradford, we’ve passed over the care to them now and they’re looking after him. We certainly wish him well and we’re pleased to know he is on the road to recovery.”
